poverty-fighting Alabama-based tax exempt organization doing with such an account. Then ponder this: how much money is in it.

Unfortunately, the IRS does not require SPLC or any tax exempt charity with an account in a foreign country to disclose additional details, such as the amount, and the SPLC's current 990 filing merely notes the existence of an account in a foreign country.

'How about attacking the roots of Southern poverty, and the system that sustains that poverty as expressed in the endless prisons and Death Rows across the South, disproportionately crammed with blacks and Hispanics?

You fight theatrically, the Dees way, or you fight substantively, like, for example, the Institute for Southern Studies run by Chris Kromm; or like Stephen Bright, who makes only $11,000 as president and senior counsel of the Southern Center for Human Rights. The center's director makes less than $50,000 [...] Bright's outfit is basically dedicated to two things: prison litigation and the death penalty. He fights the system, case by case. Not the phony targets mostly tilted at by Dees but the effective, bipartisan, functional system of oppression, far more deadly and determined than the SPLC's tin-pot hate groups. [...]'

And Cockburn is not the only watchdog keeping his eyes on all the millions of dollars flowing to SPLC and how the funds are used.

"How the Southern Poverty Law Center profits from intolerance," that is still very pertinent and well-worth reading today:

What the center's other work for justice does not include is anything that might be considered controversial by donors. According to [anti-death penalty lawyer] Millard Farmer, the center largely stopped taking death-penalty cases for fear that too visible an opposition to capital punishment would scare off potential contributors.

In 1986, the center's entire legal staff quit in protest of Dees's refusal toaddress issues - such as homelessness, voter registration, and affirmative action - that they considered far more pertinent to poor minorities [...]

In the early 1960s, Morris Dees sat on the sidelines honing his direct-marketing skills and practicing law while the civil rights movement engulfed the South. "Morris and I ... shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money," recalls Dees's business partner, a lawyer named Millard Fuller (not to be confused with Millard Farmer).

"We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich." [...]

For Dees, the P in SPLC has nothing to do with personal poverty. That P better stands for profit or profiteering for him, and foolish donors keep sending him checks,

Here’s a picture I took on my phone when passing through security in Miami on Wednesday.

The nun was travelling with three others, not unlike the Flying Imams come to think of it. My wife, Laurie, not a nun, said “Look!” and I turned and snapped this shot before the TSA agent put up her hand. It was only after we furtively looked at my phone giddy with the knowledge that we’d actually captured the moment that we saw the nun’s wheelchair."

Monday, November 29, 2010

."On Sept. 1, Mr. Obama personally askedMr. Mubarak to allow the monitors"...""The United States is the one that ought to listen to Egypt, and not the other way around""...(editorial in state-run newspaper)Muslim Brotherhood supporters protest near polling place in Egypt, AP

But opponents say the measures go too far. The children of immigrants do not automatically get Swiss citizenship, so the rule would mean sending some people who were born and brought up in Switzerland to countries they know nothing of.

Convicts would serve their sentence in Switzerland first and then be deported without appeal."...

The Swiss government advised against the proposal, favored dealing with alien criminals on a case by case basis, but their measure was rejected by the people.

(continuing, BBC): "A second referendum, which asked the Swiss to approve a minimum tax rate of 22% for people earning more than 250,000 francs (£160,000; 190,000 euros),

was rejected.

The Socialist Party said it would be more just, but the government and centre-right parties said it would harm the economy by making the country less appealing to foreign businessmen."

Sunday, November 28, 2010

."Meanwhile, urgent environmental issues threaten millions of people today but, tragically, aren’t given the priority they deserve - because so much focus is misplaced by so many on something so theoretical and long-term as man-made climate catastrophe. We should focus instead on real, urgent, life-threatening issues like

preventable disease, lack of fresh water, degradation of the oceans, deforestation and species extinction, while we wait to see what real observational data

"On 1 November, the widely-respected Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) published its satellite-derived average temperature of the lower atmosphere for October. The smoothed running

average for October was level with the 1998 figure – showing that for the past 12 years, there’s been no global warming.

Either the warming influence of man-made CO2 has been offset by unspecified cooling –

or the man-made global warming theory must be questioned.

A few days earlier, an important conference - the A-Train symposium - was held in New Orleans. It refers to the ‘afternoon train’ of satellites - Aqua (launched 2002), Aura (launched 2004), CloudSat (launched 2006) and CALIPSO (also launched 2006) - that cross the equator at around 1:30 p.m. local time each afternoon, giving the formation its name. Together, these four satellites carry 15 instruments that survey an identical slice of Earth’s surface and atmosphere as they pass overhead. Leading the train, Aqua measures temperature, water vapour, and rainfall; then CloudSat and CALIPSO track clouds and aerosols;

flying last, Aura logs greenhouse gases in the air.

Data from these satellites should answer a key question that would settle the climate debate: how much warmer would it really get - not just in theory - if CO2 were doubled? In its 2007 Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change handled this question of ‘climate sensitivity’

with computer models.

IPCC assumed that a theoretical temperature rise from CO2 alone would be theoretically amplified by water vapour, in a ‘positive feedback’, by a factor of between 2.0 and 4.5. It’s logical: if it gets warmer, there’ll be more surface evaporation, more water vapour in the air - and a warmer surface.

that since the Little Ice Age of around 1450 to 1850, it’s been getting warmer;

that since around 1850, CO2 in the air has been increasing and now stands at 390 parts per million;

that CO2 comes from many sources, natural and man-made; and

that CO2 from man-made sources accounts for 7 billion tonnes of the 220 billion tonnes of carbon equivalent emitted each year - or about 3%.

But the question of whether man-made CO2 causes unprecedented and dangerous global warming - the notion behind so much social and political angst about ‘carbon’ -

remains in serious dispute.

With observational data now becoming available from high-resolution instruments flown on specialised satellites, we could soon have a resolution to the key question of whether water vapour amplifies or attenuates temperature rises from CO2 alone. Recent peer-reviewed research in leading journals suggests the assumption that water vapour feedback adds to temperature rises from

more CO2 - and leads to climate catastrophe - may simply be wrong. Among recent papers, two stand out.

In August 2009, Dr Richard Lindzen of MIT and his collaborator Dr. Yong-Sang Choi inferred from satellite data that feedback isn’t positive at all. Using observations from the ERBE instrument on the ERBS satellite (launched in 1984), they analysed the relationship between tropical sea-surface temperatures and top-of-atmosphere heat radiation -

and concluded that feedback is far lower than the positive 2.0 to 4.5 times assumed in IPCC’s models and is in fact negative.

Responding to Trenberth’s criticism, Lindzen and Choi analysed data from the CERES instrument on the Terra satellite (launched in 1999) as well, which only reinforced their original finding. They pegged climate sensitivity at 0.7, meaning

higher temperatures from more CO2 wouldn’t be amplified, but would be reduced.

In August 2010, Dr Roy Spencer and Dr. William Braswell of UAH published a paper, also based on observational evidence, from CERES and the AMSR-E instrument on the newer Aqua satellite. Spencer and Braswell likewise demonstrated that

When did we agree to surrender to Islam? Seriously. Whom did we appoint or elect to negotiate this surrender? Our surrender has been parceled out in loss of freedom,

accommodation and submission to Islamic supremacist demands, and in foreign policy that is supine before Iran and cozying up to the Taliban.

Explain to me how, after 9/11 and the tens of thousands of Islamic attacks across the world that have been committed in the name of jihad since then, as well as the myriad Muslim insurgencies in numerous countries, the accelerating destruction of Western civilization in Europe,

and the hundreds of jihad plots that have been thwarted in the West,

the American people were sacrificed without being consulted....

Meanwhile, those who speak out against all this are marginalized, vilified, and silenced. My website, Atlas Shrugs.com, has just been banned from Veterans Administration computers, along with my colleague Robert Spencer's JihadWatch.org. Both were

"Two United Nations agencies spent millions in U.S. money on substandard Afghanistan construction projects, including a central bank without electricity and a bridge at risk of "life threatening" collapse, according to an investigation by U.S. federal agents.

The U.N. ran a "quick impact" infrastructure program from 2003 to 2006 under a $25 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

That witness said the Afghanistan country director for the U.N. Office for Project Services (UNOPS), which served as the contractor on the project for the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), spent about

$200,000 in U.S. money to renovate his guesthouse. Witness names were withheld by USAID.

The development program hired UNOPS to do the work and kept a 7% management fee, the report says. The finances were "out of control," an unnamed project services manager told investigators. An unnamed USAID contractor told investigators that the program was "ill conceived from the beginning.

This was a political idea to do quick impact projects that would look good," the report said.

Investigators found that projects reported as "complete" were actually so shoddily built that they were unusable, the report said. For example:

•A bridge near Kandahar cost $250,000, had to be overhauled by other contractors and still was not safe. The U.N. claimed the bridge was damaged by flood, but a colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told investigators that "falls between absolute incompetence and a lie; the project was improperly constructed."

•An airstrip in the southern town of Qalat, originally budgeted at $300,000, cost $749,000 and

"This is a disturbing report and an egregious example of the kind of fraud and waste that needs to be fixed," said Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

"The U.S. is committed to making the U.N. more accountable." (oh? ed.)

Vitaly Vanshelboim, UNOPS deputy executive director, did not dispute that some of his agency's work was substandard and that money was improperly diverted. He said UNOPS had overhauled itself dramatically since then. An internal U.N. investigation found serious irregularities by one former official that have since been

addressed through management reforms, he said.

UNDP spokesman Stéphane Dujarric called the report "disturbing." Both officials denied that their agencies failed to cooperate with investigators....

USAID's inspector general, Donald Gambatesa told the Commission on Wartime Contracting during a February public hearing that he was "concerned" that his agency was continuing to do business with the U.N.

You see, for the last 25 years the world economy, the motor of the world economy that has been driving it was consumption by the American consumer who has been spending more than he has been saving, all right? Than he's been producing.

(continuing, script): "And that could be the motor of the world economy in the years to come....GEORGE SOROS:Instead of consuming, building an electricity grid, saving on energy, rewiring the houses, adjusting your lifestylewhere

energy has got to cost more

until it you introduce those new things. So it will be painful. But at least we will survive and not cook.

BILL MOYERS: You're talking about this being the end of an era and needing to create a whole new paradigm for the economic model of the country, of the world, right?

"Billionaire George Soros' Quantum hedge fund has purchased Dubai Financial Group's 4 percent stake in the Bombay Stock Exchange, an exchange official said, in a deal that values Asia's oldest exchange at over $800 million.

The shares were transferred Thursday and valued at 375 rupees to 380 rupees ($8.00-$8.15) a piece, which would value the 135-year-old exchange at $800 million to $850 million, said a top BSE official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly to the media.

Soros' investment comes as India works to modernize its capital markets, opening new exchanges, streamlining trading and introducing new products, like currency futures.

With retail stock ownership still low and a booming economy, India's stock markets are of increasing interest to foreign investors.

And perhaps most irritating to the people who own them, the panels become covered with snow,

rendering them useless even in bright winter sunshine.

So in regions where homeowners have long rolled their eyes at shoveling driveways, add another cold-weather chore: cleaning off the solar panels. “At least I can get to them with a long pole and a squeegee,” said Alan Stankevitz, a homeowner in southeast Minnesota.

As concern has grown about global warming, many utilities and homeowners have been trying to shrink their emissions of carbon dioxide — their carbon footprints — by installing solar panels, wind turbines and even generators powered by tides or rivers. But for the moment, at least,

the planet is still cold enough to deal nasty winter blows to some of this green machinery.

In January 2007, a bus stalled in the middle of the night on Interstate 70 in the Colorado mountains.The culprit was a 20 percent biodiesel blend that congealed in the freezing weather, according to John Jones, the transit director for the bus line, Summit Stage. (Biodiesel is a diesel substitute, typically made from vegetable oil, that is used to displace some fossil fuels.)

The passengers got out of that situation intact, but Summit Stage, which serves ski resorts,

and uses only a 5 percent blend in the summertime, when it can still get cold in the mountains.

“We can’t have people sitting on buses freezing to death while we get out there trying to get them restarted,” Mr. Jones said.

Winter may pose even bigger safety hazards in the vicinity of wind turbines. Some observers say the

machines can hurl chunks of ice as they rotate.

“It’s like you throw a plate out there and that plate breaks,” said Ralph Brokaw, a cattle rancher in southeast Wyoming who has 69 wind turbines on his property. When his turbines ice up, he stays out of the way.

The wind industry admits that turbines can drop ice, like a lamppost or any tall structure. To ameliorate the hazard,

some turbines are painted black to absorb sunlight and melt the ice faster. But Ron Stimmel, an expert on small wind turbines at the American Wind Energy Association, denies that the whirling blades tend to hurl icy javelins.

Large turbines turn off automatically as ice builds up, and small turbines will slow and stop because the ice prevents them from spinning — “just like a plane’s wing needs to be de-iced to fly,” Mr. Stimmel said.

Mr. Brokaw says that his turbines do turn off when they are too icy, but the danger sometimes comes right before the turbines shut down, after a wet, warm snow causes ice buildup.

From the standpoint of generating power, winter is actually good for wind turbines, because it is generally windier than summer. In Vermont, for example, Green Mountain Power, which operates a small wind farm in the southeastern part of the state, gets more than twice the monthly production in winter as in August.

The opposite is true, however, forsolar power. Days are shorter and the sun is lower in the sky during the winter, ensuring less power production.

Even in northern California, with mild winters and little snow, solar panels can generate about half as much as in the summer, depending on how much they are tilted, according to Rob Erlichman, chief executive of Sunlight Electric, a San Francisco solar company.

Operators of the electrical grid do not worry much about the seasonal swings,

because the percentage of production from renewable energy is still so low —

Trey Taylor, the president of Verdant Power, which has put small turbines in the tidal East River in New York City and plans more for the St. Lawrence River in Canada, said that ice chunks could slide over one another “like a deck of cards,”

pushing ice below and harming turbines. That may rule out parts of otherwise promising sites like the Yukon River in Alaska, he said.

Kevin Devlin, the vice president for operations of Iberdrola Renewables, a wind developer, said that winter was probably the hardest time of year to maintain turbines, because workers must go out in snow and ice. Occasionally, he said, the turbineswill shut down or set off alarms if it is too cold, and workers must brave the elements to fix them.

For homeowners, the upkeep of their power sources can also be a bother.

Mr. Stankevitz keeps his panels tilted 40 degrees or higher, but they still become covered with snow — and experts say that if even one cell in a panel is covered, the panel will not produce power.

On the other hand, the panels can get extra power from sunlight reflected off nearby snow. And like other electronic gear, solar panels work better when cold.

Mr. Stankevitz said thaton some rare winter days, when the Minnesota sky is clear, the weather is freezing and the sun is shining brightly, his panels can briefly churn out more electricity than they were designed to produce, more than on the balmiest days of summer."

Thanks to a generous share of GM stock obtained in the company's 2009 bankruptcy settlement, the United Auto Workers is well on its way to recouping the billions of dollars GM owed it — putting it far ahead of

taxpayers who have recouped only about 30 percent of their investment and further still

The boon for the union fits the pattern established when the White House pushed GM into bankruptcy and steered it through the courts in a way that consistently put the interests of the union ahead of many suppliers, dealers and investors —

stakeholders that ordinarily would have fared as well or better under the bankruptcy laws.

"Priority one was serving the interests of the UAW" when the White House's auto task force engineered the bankruptcy, said Glenn Reynolds, an analyst at CreditSights. The stock offering served to show once again how the White House has handsomely rewarded its political allies, he said.

The union's health care and pension trust fund earned $3.4 billion through the sale of one-third of its shares in GM last week.

Analysts estimate that it would break even if it sells the remaining two-thirds of its shares at an average price of $36 — close to where the stock traded shortly after the offering hit the market. GM shares closed at $33.45 on Wednesday.

For taxpayers to break even, by contrast, the stock would have to rise to at least $52 and by some estimates as high as $103 — levels that would take years to achieve.

In any event, after selling one-third of its shares last week, the U.S. Treasury has agreed not to sell any more of its GM stock for another six months,

while the union fund is free to keep selling its shares.

Through the offering, the Treasury recouped $13.7 billion of its $49.5 billion cash infusion in GM, with another $1.8 billion possible by the end of the year. GM is repaying another $9.5 billion in loans from the Treasury,

but that still leaves taxpayers a long way from breaking even.

Union claims ordinarily do not receive such special treatment in bankruptcies.

The generous share of GM stock given to the union trust fund under the White House deal puts it not only ahead of the Treasury but on a par with secured creditors such as banks, which normally receive the most favorable treatment from bankruptcy courts.

None of the bankrupt company's previous stockholders got any money, while the claims of thousands of investors who purchased the company's bonds are still being kicked around in a Manhattan bankruptcy court.

He compared the deal to thecorrupt crony capitalism in Russia under President Vladimir Putin.

The White House "took a page out of the Putin political asset reallocation and reward system" when it engineered the deal, he said....

Steve Rattner, the White Houseauto czar who engineered the deal, repeated the position he took throughout the bankruptcy — that the bondholders would have ended up with nothing if the government hadn't intervened.

"The best outcome is a successful GM that then shares fairly with our membership," he said.

John Paul McDuffie, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, said the full funding of the union's pension and health care trust fund through the bankruptcy process represents progress because it helped solve one of most

"persistent and difficult" bones of contention between GM and its union.

GM and the UAW had been at loggerheads for years over how to deal with GM's so-called "legacy" costs — funding the generous worker health care and retirement benefits it promised in earlier eras.

(11/29/09), "People don't trade carbonbecause they are good people," exclaims Patrick Birley, the chief executive of the ICE European Climate Exchange..."Carbon-related products are probably the most profitable part of trading for any of the investment banks right now..."...Mr Birley admits."...

US taxpayers even paid for "the science" per Phil Jones, ClimateGate email:

Why would he change his story now leading into the Cancun climate conference? First, he would be out of a job if he stuck to the truth. Second, the billionaires behind the 'climate industry' have flooded the media with the demand that US taxpayers must pay billions ASAP and yearly in perpetuity to organized crime figures and others. The 'climate industry' says it's about money (NRDC, Bloomberg, Soros, UN). Since the UN is involved it will be a slush fund for thugs to stash dough in Swiss banks, with no accountability and no effect on climate.

11/25/10, Reuters: "This year is so far tied for the hottest year in a temperature record dating back to 1850 in a new sign of a warming trend,

the three major institutes which calculate global warming estimates told Reuters....

"I think it's too close to call. Based on these numbers it'll be second, but it depends on how warm November and December are," said Phil Jones, director of Britain's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), at the University of East Anglia,

which says 1998 was the record year so far."...

How could Reuters say this and stay in business? Phil Jones the head of this group doesn't believe this in his own words, and fears "the scientific community" also in his own words. They quote Phil Jones, then depart from him to cite the CRU opinion for which they provide no substantiation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape —